I'll Be Here All Week by Anderson Ward Page A

managed to somehow have the shell of a friendship left over was a miracle.
    â€œI’m glad you guys are doing so well,” Spence says and knows how phony it sounds. The chuckle Beth gives back lets him know he’s right.
    â€œOh, sure.” She smiles and rolls her eyes. Every once in a while, he sees what everyone else does. She’s beautiful, and everyone he knew envied him for being with her. When they did get along, they laughed a lot. She was a great sounding board, and always knew which bits he was working on would be great additions to his act and which ones would fail. He wonders if she laughs a lot with Evan.
    â€œYou look good,” she says.
    â€œI thought I looked tired,” he says.
    â€œWell, yeah.”
    â€œYou’re a bad liar.”
    Beth rolls her eyes again, but this time it doesn’t feel quite as friendly. “Just look for the decorations, okay?” she says and starts to close the door.
    â€œOkay,” he says.
    â€œAnd you need to fire Rodney,” she tells him. “He’s sending you to redneck bars? That’s bullshit.”
    â€œMechanical bullshit.” He grins. Rim shot.
    The door closes, and Spence walks out into the parking lot. He stands there for a minute and looks around at the rest of the condo complex and all the cars parked in a neat little row. Evan’s Audi really is very nice. He probably gets it detailed regularly and changes the tires even when he doesn’t have to. It probably still has that “new car” smell and always will.
    Putting on his fake Wayfarers, Spence tosses the stack of mail into the backseat of his car. He sits there for a second and looks at the different condos in the complex. This really is the only part of New Jersey he ever liked. A minute later, he sees Russ and Debbie climbing out of their Honda Accord. He scratches his temple and pretends not to see them when they wave at him as he drives away.

4
    Rodney used to have an office in downtown Manhattan, but now uses some dump in Brooklyn. There’s no telling where Rodney’s actual home is. It has never even come up in conversation or been mentioned. There have been times when Spence has called there at two a.m. only to have Rodney pick up the phone. The guy is not that efficient an agent, so there’s no way he’d be doing work at that hour. It seems more likely that the sofa pulls out into a bed and Rodney lives in that little room around the clock.
    â€œWhat’s up, you filthy man-whore?” Rodney yells at him when he walks in the door. The place is a mess. There isn’t a single place to sit down since every corner is covered with paper, trash, headshots, and videotapes. The videotapes stand out the most. Rodney still uses a VCR to copy the videos of comics that he sends out to clubs. While the rest of the world is watching clips online or, at the very least, on DVD, Rodney is still lamenting the death of Betamax.
    â€œLove what you’ve done with the place,” Spence says to Rodney as he climbs over the remains of other comedians’ careers.
    â€œThe cleaning lady comes tomorrow,” Rodney says. The phone is on his shoulder, but he isn’t talking to anyone, so he must be on hold. Some teenager is sitting on the floor, sorting through papers.
    â€œIntern?” Spence asks, tilting his head toward the kid doing all the work. Rodney nods, holds up his index finger, and swivels around in his chair. Rodney has a new intern every month. They work for school credit, hoping to leave NYU and get a job at the William Morris Agency or with Gersh. Most of them will wind up in Brooklyn, just like Rodney, or in Jersey, where the rent is cheaper. Also like Rodney, they’ll all become D-list agents, managing the careers of comedians climbing or falling back down the show business ladder.
    Agents like Rodney are everywhere, and they’re surprisingly in demand. In both New York and LA, there are hundreds